Sacked but not boned

Good Charlotte frontman, The Voice judge and adopted Australian Joel Madden caused a minor panic among his fans - and confusion for his bosses at Nine - today by tweeting a single word: "Sacked".

Immediately, he started getting responses from his 710,000 followers asking if that meant Madden, who is in Sydney right now preparing to perform at the NRL grand final this weekend and the AFL footy Show this Thursday, had lost his job on the top-rating reality series which brought him to Australia this year.

As time passed and Madden neither responded to questions nor posted anything else, his single enigmatic word was retweeted dozens of times and speculation mounted.

But whatever he's been sacked from - or whatever he's talking about - Nine was quick to assure he hasn't been (to use that infamous Nine executive word) "boned".

"We're not sure what Joel was referring to, but it's not The Voice," A network spokesperson said.

"He's still very much in contract negotiations [to return as a judge on The Voice season two] right now."

Perhaps Madden, a notorious NFL fan, was just watching football?

If so, he might want to learn the word "tackled" before this weekend.

Update: Madden updated his Twitter account six hours after the initial tweet to confirm he had been referencing American Football, saying "I was talking about the NFL when I said sacked".